Gary Shaffer, Ph.D. serves as the head of the Library and Information Science program at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and Assistant Dean of USC Libraries and director of the Center for Library Leadership and Management . He is the former chief executive officer of the Tulsa City-County Library, a 24 location public library system, with over 405 employees located in Northeastern Oklahoma. Gary started his library career as a trainee in the joint Brooklyn Public Library and Pratt Institute Public Urban Library Service Education (PULSE) program. He then worked for the Los Angeles County and Sacramento public libraries. In 2006 he was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker: One of 50 people shaping the future of libraries.

Shaffer received his Ph.D. in Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions from Simmons College in Boston. For his dissertation, titled Leading Through Triple Bottom Line Sustainability: Five Companies Show Public Libraries the Way, he interviewed sustainability practitioners at Fortune Most Admired Companies and library leaders at five Library Journal Libraries of The Year. .

Shaffer holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the Pratt Institute in New York City, a Master’s of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and a Master of Laws in Intellectual Property from the University of Turin Law School and the World Intellectual Property Organization. He is also a member of the Public Library Association, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the Association for Library and Information Science Educators (ALISE), and the Special Library Association. In ALA he is active with the Committee on Library Advocacy, the ALA Development Task Force, and the Sustainability Round Table. He previously served for four years on the board of the Public Library Association, as well as a three year term on the ALA Council (governing body). He also previously served on the ALA Public Awareness Committee. Prior to working in libraries, Gary supervised Fortune 500 accounts for various advertising agencies.

Shaffer is an author of scholarly articles, a book chapter, and has a forthcoming book due out from ABC CLIO's Libraries Unlimited in March 2018 entitled Creating the Sustainable Public Library. He speaks domestically and internationally and has advocated for copyright reform on behalf of libraries and archives, as a member of the IFLA delegation to the UNs' World Intellectual Property Organization's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.